


maybe it's better the way it is

by starsinthesunlight



Series: Tommy and Tubbo Run Away AU [2]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bombs, Dream Team SMP Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Dream Team SMP Spoilers, Gen, Ghost Wilbur Soot, Hurt No Comfort, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of War, Nightmares, Personal Canon, Poetic, Post-Manberg Festival on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Short, Toby Smith | Tubbo and TommyInnit Run Away, kind of, no beta we die like my motivation, they are sad bestfriends your honor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28744455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsinthesunlight/pseuds/starsinthesunlight
Summary: after a long week of missing how things used to be, tommy has nightmares. he has nightmares, and he realizes that maybe the one he’s living isn’t so bad after all.
Series: Tommy and Tubbo Run Away AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2107380
Comments: 10
Kudos: 50





	maybe it's better the way it is

**Author's Note:**

> tw// swearing, allusions to suicide and death, hints of manipulation, bombs and explosions, nightmares.  
> nothing graphic, hope you enjoy :)

tommy has dreams. nightmares. he sees schlatt pass, he sees tubbo become president. he sees withers, sees everyone scramble to fight, to save their land- to save each other- in a clashing cacophony of loud noise. he hears explosions boom, echoing through the sudden silence and a grim smoke fills the air. when it clears, he sees hope in its most tangible form.   
from the ground up, almost like those time-lapse videos tommy tried to learn building through all those lifetimes ago, l'manberg is built anew.

he sees a court room.   
  
he sees dream.

_exile him._  
_tommyinnit, your citizenship has now been revoked._

he feels needles on his skin. he's led through the nether and out a new portal he's never seen before.  
another small explosion.

he's stripped of his armor, his belongings,

of his friends.

he's alone, he can feel it in his bones.

and he's really starting to hate the sound of explosions.

_you'll be my friend, won't you?_  
_i'm all you have._

his heart and hopes only sink.

it's all downhill from here.

_you can only go down._

he wakes up with a sharp pain in his side. he can't breathe. 

_dream in my nightmares, how funny._ the first bitter thought that passes through his brain.

he steels himself and prepares for an early morning, throwing himself into the next thing.

it's just a nightmare. it's just a nightmare. 

he doesn't want to know where it came from. he doesn't want to think about it at all. and he certainly doesn't want to go back. he can still feel loneliness brush against his arms. he hates the feeling.

the next night, everything blurs by. he's in exile. a floating apparition of wilbur is with him. he's almost like a hologram. 

he sees dream. 

he has a glowing compass clutched in his hand with blue smudged on the glass. it emanates importance. irreplaceability.  
he sees tnret. 

a puff of smoke from the tnt, the type of smoke tommy is getting tired of seeing, of smelling.  
the wind biting his skin through his shirt, cold seeping through his armor-less self,

he sees dream again. 

and again. 

and it's all dream back and forth and tommy's in the nether again and he's dropping a compass into the lava and there's whispers of so many words and tails of lies and half-truths and empty promises and he can hear explosions and he’s so so cold despite the pinching heat against his skin and feels a surge of energy like he's just teetering over a dangerous ledge and

it flashes back to what he recognized as his campsite. 

craters fill what used to be tnret and logstedshire. the terrain is gaping and chunky and gone.

tommy feels his heart ache as he watches the site grow smaller and smaller under his feet until he feels sick at how far above everything he is. 

it all sharply cuts away. 

it takes his breath with it.

a tower, a tall tower looms over the sad site. an eerie fog coats it all.

muffled quiet rambles and fragments of sentences are the only sound that reach his ears before it abruptly cuts off.

he can only make out enough to know that _that isn't dream's voice._

and- wait holy shit. it wasn't dream's voice.

it's _tubbo's_.

it would have been comforting to see a friendly face, a face he hadn't seen in far too long. it would have been liberating, if only he had come _j_ _ust a little bit earlier._

_you were so close to me. so close._

tubbo's cheeks glisten, though the skies are gray and dull and the sun's rays don't seem to quite reach as far as they should. his eyes are big and blue and full of fear and _regret_ and

a grave flashes by tommy's eyes. tubbo stand in front of it, flowers in shaking hand.

 _tommyinnit_ , carved into the stone by an inexperienced hand.

another, glowing compass is clutched in his other hand, held close to his heart. a compass not so different from his own.

_your tommy._

flashes of the nether. the lava, the way the smoke stings his lungs and he can somehow _feel_ the pinpricks of head on his uncovered arms again.

_i'm sorry. i fucked up. i really fucked up._

he doesn't know which of them said it.

he wakes up with a headache.

he doesn't want to sleep. he doesn't want to, not when everything is so shit when he sleeps. 

again and again, he's thrown into a realm of nightmare. 

he was promised that he would only sink, and the nightmares delivered.

he stays up instead. and he cries. only after he's sure tubbo is asleep, though. he wouldn't know how to explain it to him if he asked.

_the sixteenth._

his heart stammers and he can feel his fingers go numb as his brain whispers the date to him. 

he feel its cold, daunting importance in his very bones. 

_that's less than a month away._

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed! thank you so so much for reading :)  
> let me know if i succeeded in making you Feel Things and if you want more of my tommy and tubbo run away AU!!  
> i appreciate the hell out of any comments and kudos! <3


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